carpet is cool against my feet even though it will be another hot day. From the bathroom, the steady plink of the leaky sink faucet marks the passage of time. I draw back the curtain and gaze out through the glass.
Somewhere out there, beneath this same slate blue-black sky is Robyn. Is she asleep? Safe? My stomach churns with a heavy sickness contemplating the alternatives. I rest my hand against the windowpane, as if this action might somehow allow me to communicate my love to my daughter.
Yesterday I had finally managed to get one local television station interested in our plight. A scraggly cameraman and a field reporter from a local channel, both of whom stank of cigarette smoke, came out and interviewed Rob and I. I was calm and did my best to speak in a slow, still voice. With clammy hands we held the eight by ten of Robyn’s freshman picture along with our phone number in twenty-six-point courier font in front of the cold, uncaring lens and were promised a spot on the six o’clock news. But due to a head-on collision that killed six on the Bay Bridge, Robyn’s story was relegated to little more than a flash of her picture on the screen after the sports highlights. Nearly the entire interview had been deleted.
Still, hope clings to me like an orphan. Her picture is out there now. Though I’d made up flyers days ago and stapled them to every telephone pole I could find in the greater East County area, I feel that having the television exposure, however brief, is a step in the right direction. I went to bed last night with the unreasonable expectation that Robyn would see herself on TV and come right home.
Suddenly, the telephone rings. I leap to the dresser, snatching up the receiver.
“Hello?” I say, breathless. I look at the clock on my nightstand: four forty-five.
“Your daughter is dead. I cut her.” The voice is gruff and full of hate. “Did you hear me? I cut the bitch—”
I slam the receiver down. The raw and sour taste of bile rises in my throat. Rob stirs.
“Who was that?” he asks.
“Another crank call,” I say.
The reporter warned us that this would happen. He said there were lots of sick people out there who enjoy it when others suffer.
I walk back to the window fighting the sting of tears, my back to Rob.
“I want to hire a private investigator,” I say.
I hear the swish and flutter of blanket and sheet.
“How much will that cost?” Rob asks as he makes his way to the bathroom.
“What difference does it make?” I respond.
The plash of urine against water followed by the flush of the toilet obfuscates my question. Rob tramps back into the bedroom, pads across the room, directly behind me.
“We don’t have any money,” he says sadly.
Though we are not touching, I can smell his familiar odor: stale sweat and morning breath.
“We’ve got two thousand dollars in savings,” I say. “And we could probably get an advance on the MasterCard.”
“Isn’t that card maxed out?” he asks. He runs his hand through his hair. “Besides, what’s a PI gonna do that the cops aren’t already doing?” he asks.
His hand snakes round my shoulder. I lean my head against his chest, tears filling my eyes yet again, stopping for the moment, the constant burn of exhaustion. The bitter tang of salt coats my tongue.
“I don’t know,” I say. My voice is so high it is nearly a squeak. “But we have to do something.”
His other hand his on my head now, fingers gently and tenderly massaging my scalp.
“She’s probably staying at a friend’s house,” he says.
I hear it; the overwhelming desire that things will be just fine in a day or two. I feel it too sometimes. As if by sheer will we could simply wish a happy ending. It’s intoxicating at moments when I am the weakest. Maybe if I just go to work and finish the laundry, ignoring the entire nightmare long enough it will go away. I clench my jaw and stiffen.
“Maybe she’s not at a friend’s house. Maybe she’s in trouble and she can’t get to us. Maybe she’s hurt, or—” I stop suddenly, unable to give voice to the unthinkable.
Rob breaks our embrace and turns away, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. Was he crying?
“I gotta get ready for work,” he says. A minute later the pelt of water against plastic announces that he is in the shower.
*